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Thursday, December 15, 2005

At my teaching gig today my supervisor gave me a Christmas card with a Target gift card enclosed within it. I made a joke about using it to buy some Star Wars action figures, and went on to talk about how I've been trying to find the elusive Tarkin figure from the Episode III line for some time now. It's considered ultra-rare: I've seen it for sale on eBay for $30-50. Ever since I saw it on display at Star Wars Celebration III (of which I am gonna put the pics up sometime before the year's out) I've had a horrible fascination with this desiccated corpse of a children's toy. Well, I had to make a stop at Target after work today anyway and I headed to the toy department, more out of whimsy than anything else. I saw about five Star Wars figures hanging on the pegs and then almost howled with disbelief: there was a Tarkin figure! Just a few weeks ago Darth Larry and me were at a toy show at the Greensboro Coliseum: I went there looking for Tarkin but for the first time in bunches that I've gone to the show I didn't find my quarry. Lots of dealers did have some but they sold out really early on. Darth Larry told me that I'd find one sooner or later, and he was right: there it was, just sitting on the shelf waiting to be plucked up. And I didn't have to spring for it on eBay either. And with the gift card (the rest of which I used to help buy the King Kong soundtrack) Tarkin didn't even really cost me anything! Okay, I'm happy now. Happier than I would have been if I'd somehow found an Xbox 360 this holiday season, even! I got a Star Wars figure that a lot of people are looking for, and it came after a hard-fought but honorable search for it. What more could a guy ask for?? :-)

It's possible that they're starting to turn up more. Don't know for certain but it could be the more recent waves are featuring Tarkin. You'll know for sure if you see 10-20 Tarkins hanging from the pegs (in which case my little moment of victory may be somewhat diminished, but that's okay... I got Tarkin!! :-)